


There is a Time, There is a Place

by SuchStuffAsDreamsAreMadeOn



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebellion Era - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Cassian Andor Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, I need a hug, Jyn Erso Needs A Hug, Kid!Cassian, Kid!Leia, Mentions of Blood, canon-typical mentions of violence, kid!Jyn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-18
Updated: 2017-05-18
Packaged: 2018-11-02 05:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10937727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuchStuffAsDreamsAreMadeOn/pseuds/SuchStuffAsDreamsAreMadeOn
Summary: "They have little enough in common.  They come - literally and figuratively - from different worlds, their clothing and hairstyles proof enough of that.  One is dressed in soft pants, combat boots, and a dark jacket, with two messy braids holding both hair and memories.  The other wears a soft, white gown, her hair pulled up into two pristine buns just above her temples.  Their temperaments are different too, manifested in the way the girls hold themselves.  The elder leans forward on the balls of her feet, ready for action, a knife strapped to her side.  The younger surveys the room with a poise rarely seen in those even twice her age.  And yet the two young women are far more similar than either could comprehend in that moment."A young Jyn is brought to a meeting at the Rebel base by Saw.  While there she meets a girl dressed all in white and a boy with beautiful, sad eyes.





	There is a Time, There is a Place

**Author's Note:**

> 1) As ever, this piece would not exist without my amazing friend [Kobo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kobo).
> 
> 2) The title comes from the song "How I Know You" from Aida.
>
>> There is a time  
> There is a place  
> When love should conquer all  
> The rest of life is pushed aside  
> As truth and reason fall  
> But only if that selfishness  
> Can lead to something good 
> 
> 3) The inspiration for the piece came from [this](http://wearesuchstuff1.tumblr.com/post/160322893873/ladytharen-runakvaed-senator-organa-wait) post. 

The two men stand across the room from each other, the tactical table between them. There are others in the room, but at the moment the furious energy sparking across the table makes the various commanders, generals, and extraneous personnel stationed around the perimeter all but invisible. Many of them certainly wish they were. 

While the men argue and accuse, two smaller figures watch each other from across the table. Both dark haired and fair skinned they listen to their adoptive fathers with sharp, curious eyes. They watch each other with that same curiosity. 

They have little enough in common. They come - literally and figuratively - from different worlds, their clothing and hairstyles proof enough of that. One is dressed in soft pants, combat boots, and a dark jacket, with two messy braids holding both hair and memories. The other wears a soft, white gown, her hair pulled up into two pristine buns just above her temples. Their temperaments are different too, manifested in the way the girls hold themselves. The elder leans forward on the balls of her feet, ready for action, a knife strapped to her side. The younger surveys the room with a poise rarely seen in those even twice her age. And yet the two young women are far more similar than either could comprehend in that moment. 

After all, they are both here. 

Saw Gerrera, ever passionate, flings words like grenades. Jyn Erso is used to this passion. She sees it in everything her adoptive father does, from the way he fights to the way he trains her to the way he tucks her in at night - stories of the horrors of the Empire replacing the tales her mother had once told her. 

Gerrera’s passion is equally matched by Senator Organa. He has seen too many he cared for die at the hands of the Empire to allow the Alliance to, as he puts, _sink so low_. If the fervor displayed by the Senator surprises Leia Organa it does not show on the nine-year-old’s face. This is not her first diplomatic meeting, nor will it be her last.

One last figure stands at the edge of the tactical table, watching, ever-quiet. She speaks now, her calm voice ringing with enough authority to silence even these two impassioned men. 

“Tempers have run hot,” Mon Mothma says. “I believe it would be wise to take a break before we say what cannot be unsaid.”

The matter is not finished. Everyone knows that. But heads are inclined and a breath is released and the room begins to clear. 

“Jyn.” Saw’s hand is heavy on her shoulder and his voice is quiet. “My child, go, speak to the young princess. See what you can learn of her father’s plans.”

“You want me to spy on our friends?” the girl asks.

“Those unwilling to do what it takes to defeat the Empire are no friends of ours. Remember that, Jyn.” 

It warms what is left of Saw’s heart to see the way, even at eleven, Jyn sets her shoulders and lifts her chin. She is strong, and he knows she will need that strength. 

Her father is speaking with Mon Mothma and Leia surveys the room quietly. She catalogs who speaks with whom, who laughs aloud and who keeps their voice low, and who has left the room completely. She watches the other girl speak with Gerrera, then approach her. The older girl is taller, but her clothes are ripped and muddied. Leia offers her a gentle smile. Her aunts would be proud. 

“Hello,” she offers.

“Your father’s wrong, you know,” Jyn responds. Leia doubts this girl has aunts to teach her proper diplomatic decorum. 

“How so?”

“The Empire will kill every one of us if they’re given the chance,” the girl defends. She is told these words before every battle. “They’d destroy entire planets to kill us if they could.” 

Leia nods. She does not doubt it. “Then let us then be thankful such technology does not exist.”

Jyn bristles. She has seen the Empire destroy people. They don’t need that sort of technology. All they needed to kill her mother was a blaster. Given the chance, all Jyn would need to kill the man in white who took her mother and father from her would be her bare hands. 

“But don’t you see? They would kill us if they could. We must kill them before they are given the chance. Doesn’t your father understand?”

Leia raises her chin but her eyes spark with a defiance and fight that even her aunts have not been able to douse. Her father saw the same spark when she had demanded to join him on the mission to the Rebel Base. 

“Of course we do. But my father and I also believe that the torturing of prisoners for information and the murder of innocent civilians makes us no better than those we fight against.”

“You’re wrong,” Jyn bites, pushing away the thought that in some other time, in some other life, she and Leia might have been friends. “It doesn’t make us better. It makes us dead.”

She turns on her heel and marches out of the room in search of Saw, having no way of knowing that as her angry back retreats the young princess is watching her, having the same thought that Jyn herself just had. Leia imagines that perhaps the day when she and Jyn can be friends remains ahead of them. Leia, as always, has hope. 

 

Jyn storms out of the War Room, a force of nature as always. Saw is nowhere to be seen so she picks a direction, turning away from the few huddled groups of ranking officers and heading instead down a quiet corridor that hugs the War Room’s outer wall. The first door she comes to is locked with a keypad, as is the second. The third has no keypad in sight and opens with a tug. The door reveals nothing but a supply closet. Only shelves and crates. Well, Jyn notes with surprise as the door clicks shut behind her. Only shelves and crates and a boy.

He’s a young man, really. He sits on a box with one leg drawn up next to him, but even sitting Jyn can see that he would tower above her. His hair hangs into his eyes and the shadowy beginnings of a beard show on his cheeks. He regards her with a mixture of shock and confusion. 

“Who are you?” Jyn demands. The boy raises an eyebrow at her.

“I’m Lieutenant Cassian Andor, who are you?”

“Are you spying on us, Cassian?” Jyn has always preferred to skip right to the point of a conversation. It always used to make her papa laugh. 

“What? No.” The boy - Cassian - is a good liar, Jyn notes. He has been trained. His eyes stay focused on hers, his fingers don’t fidget. But Jyn has been trained, too, and she hears the way his words trip a bit too quickly from his tongue. 

“Why else would you be sitting in a supply closet next to the War Room?”

“Look, little girl, I don’t -”

“I’m not a little girl,” Jyn interrupts, voice indigent. It’s the not first time she’s been judged for her size and age. But usually, after a good beating or two in the training field, most of the Partisans stop making that mistake. She had been her papa’s ‘little girl’. She would be no one else's. “I could kill you with just my hands, you know.”

Cassian - who has not yet had the misfortune of feeling Jyn’s stinging blows - simply laughs. 

“I’d like to see you try. I’ve been fighting people much bigger than you since I was six.” While Jyn may like the way Cassian’s accent colors his words she has to scoff. She’s already killed ‘troopers more than double his age.

“You’re here with Saw Gerrera, aren’t you? For the meeting?” Cassian asks, changing the subject. 

“The one you’re spying on, yes.”

Cassian’s eyes flash. Someday this little girl is going to get him into trouble. He’s sure of it. “I’m not spying. Draven said I couldn’t be in the room. He didn’t say I couldn’t listen. Besides, there are parts in here I need for a droid I’ve reprogrammed. He’s functional but he still has a few glitches.”

“Droids annoy me. Who’s Draven?” Jyn asked, wandering over to a nearby crate and perching on it, looking curiously at Cassian. She can only assume this Draven was one of the many pairs of eyes watching Saw and Senator Organa’s argument. Perhaps he was Cassian’s mentor. Jyn didn’t get the feeling she would like him much. 

A distinct note of pride entered Cassian’s voice. “Commander Draven. He’s an intelligence officer. He recruited me.” 

“When?”

“When I was younger than you.” This statement is accompanied by a raised eyebrow. It isn’t that Cassian is happy to have been a soldier at such a young age - although it does give him authority over the other kids on the base. He had much rather have spent the time growing up with his parents and his sister. But they were lost to him a long time ago and the Rebellion has given him a home and a cause to fight for and he is proud to do his part. And if he cannot close his eyes some nights for fear that he will be haunted by those whose lives have been sacrificed - either by his hands or another’s - for the sake of this war, well then that is a price he must pay. Besides, he reminds himself, he’s sure it will get easier as he grows up. Someday he’ll be strong, just like Draven, and the deaths - his family’s, his friend’s, and even his enemy’s - won’t bother him then. 

“You don’t know how old I am.” The girl’s chin is raised, her shoulders set. Cassian is sure this is a well-practiced look for her. Despite her strength he can still see the hurt in her young eyes. That too, he knows, will fade with time. 

“11, 12?”

Jyn’s scowl deepens. She hadn’t thought he would guess. She feels as though she should be fifty for all she has seen and done in her young life. “I’m 11. But I could still kill you with just my hands. How old are you?”

“16.”

“If I’d been fighting since I was six I would have killed them all by now,” Jyn scoffs. “The empire, the man in white. Everyone who-” she stops herself, her young eyes going wide at the words that had almost tumbled their way out of her mouth.

“Who what?”

The light is dim in the supply room, but when Jyn meets Cassian’s eyes she can see sympathy there. She pushes away thoughts of blaster fire and her mother’s limp body held in her father’s arms. She pushes away memories of the dark, underground room and her lamp, threatening with every flicker to plunge her into eternal darkness. Most of all she pushes away the burning, all consuming hatred for the man in white who had taken her life from her. Saw fanned that hatred, nurtured it, loved it, but it scared Jyn in a way she did not want to admit, even to herself. But Saw’s words rang in her mind, ever present, a lifeline to which she clung when the darkness and pain threatened to swallow her whole. _We must destroy them, Jyn. It is the only way to find peace - for the galaxy and for yourself._

“Everyone who took my parents away.”

It almost shocked Cassian, how much this little girl’s words hurt him. But why should it surprise him? War created orphans all the time. Hell, he created orphans with just a shot from his blaster. No, it should not surprise him that this child had lost her parents to the Empire. 

Nor should it surprise him that she wanted revenge. After all, when Dravin had approached him with an offer to join the Rebellion he had jumped at the chance to continue the fight the Empire had already started when they killed his family. Revenge had driven him for years, had honed his loyalty to Alliance, and had formed bonds he knew he could never walk away from. But despite the commitment he dedicated to every aspect of his training, the thrill that had coursed through him when issued his own blaster, and the pride he had felt when assigned his first solo mission, he had slowly begun to realize that it didn't matter. The eyes of the first person he killed still haunted his nightmares and not their death, nor any victory the Rebellion had scored since did anything to bring his family back to him. He is loyal to the Alliance, more loyal than most, he suspects, but it doesn’t take away the pain, and it tares at Cassian’s heart to hear this young girl, somehow both hardened and naive - as he is now sure he once was - speak of her dead parents and the hope that her suffering could be erased by vengeance. In all things but this Cassian knows the importance of hope - he has seen men live and die for nothing more - but this hope, he knows, will be lost to the girl, and it will destroy her. Maybe it will destroy them both. 

“That’s not how it works, little girl. You can’t ever get back at them. Not ever. And by the time you finish trying they’ve taken something new from you. And you can’t stop. And it doesn’t ever end.”

He watches her, wishing his words could get through to her but knowing she will not - cannot - give in. She will hold on to hope for as long as she can, and his words will do nothing to stop her. And when that hope is finally lost it will break her. 

Instead of responding the girl’s eyes flick down to his arm where Cassian had managed to push the dull ache and wetness all but out of his mind. 

“You’re bleeding.” Jyn narrows her eyes and watches the boy glance down at his arm where a bloody bandage peeked through a blaster-shot shaped hole in his jacket. 

Cassian purses his lips. He had gone to medbay as instructed and the droid had cleaned and wrapped his wound. It isn’t that deep, so Cassian is surprised to see that he has bled through. Maybe he shouldn’t have turned down the bacta the droid had offered. 

“I just got back from a mission.” Neither child seems too worried about the blood, and nothing could say more about their childhoods than that.

“A successful one?”

Cassian glances at the girl. “I killed the target, if that’s what you consider a success.”

Jyn’s confusion shows on her face. “Of course it is. One less of them, right?”

“Four less of them, actually.” A husband, a wife, and their two children. They youngest had been his age. They never saw him, lying on the neighboring roof, sniper rifle in hand. He had contemplated for a full two minutes which to kill first. In the end he started with the youngest. He remembered what it was like to watch your parents die. 

“All the better,” Jyn answered.

Cassian watches her for a moment. “Saw. He trains his Partisans from a young age, right?”

Jyn nods. “He’s been training me since I was eight. I’m the youngest. And I’m going to be the best.”

“And it doesn’t bother you? What you have to do? The people Saw has you kill? The prisoners Saw tortures?”

“Not if it gets me closer to finding my father.” Jyn’s look is fierce, but there is a shadow of uncertainty in her eyes, as if a part of her soul is crying out to be saved. When she speaks again the words are not hers. “We have to do everything we can to fight against the Empire. They have to be destroyed.”

Cassian gives her a tiny smile. “On that point we agree, little girl.”

He was not the only orphan of war raised by the Alliance, of course, and a few adult soldiers have raised their own children in the corridors of the Dantooine base, but this girl is different, he decides. He could imagine, somehow, being willing to fight by her side for a cause they both believed in - after she grew a few more inches, of course. 

With a sudden bang the door to the supply closet busts open. The light from the hallway is obstructed by large figure and Saw leans heavily on his staff, his breathing labored and his face furious. Both children jump to their feet but Saw hardly spares a glance for Cassian before he turns to Jyn.

“Child. Come. We are leaving this place. Forever.”

“What happened?” Jyn asks.

“They will not fight for the Rebellion. They will not do what it takes.” Rage emanates off Saw’s imposing figure and somehow both Jyn and Cassian know that the fate of the Rebellion will never be the same. “You will never see these people again.” With that Gerrera turns and storms out of the room. Quickly Jyn moves to follow, but at the door she turns back.  
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you were defying orders,” she tells Cassian, her small hand on the doorframe.

Cassian stands tall - she was right, he does tower above her - and clasps his hands behind his back. Despite standing at attention, though, his deep brown eyes find Jyn’s. “I don’t defy orders, little girl. You defy orders and people get killed. You should learn that.”

Jyn holds Cassian’s gaze for a moment, then drops her head. When she looks back up at him she is sad beyond her years. He sees that she is in pain, sees that she is lost, and sees that she needs a home. But it is not in his power to give her one.

“People get killed even if you don’t defy orders, Cassian. You should learn that.” 

And with that Jyn Erso turns and walks out of Cassian Andor’s life. Thoughts of Saw Gerrera’s green eyed girl rarely cross Cassian’s mind. Like Gerrera said, they were never going to see each other again. Cassian believes that, right up until the day he is called to the War Room by General Dravin and finds himself staring at a woman - a criminal with a traitor for a father - whose beautiful green eyes seem impossibly familiar and who glances at him with well concealed questions. 

They try to place each other, try to figure each other out, but it isn’t until Jedha, when Cassian finds Jyn kneeling next to Gerrera, with tears in her beautiful eyes, that he remembers the little girl in the supply closet. He pulls her out of the collapsing temple - away from the man who, despite everything he did to her, had been her father for so many years - and can do nothing but acknowledge the commands that come through from Draven, ordering him to kill the only other father Jyn has ever known. He had been right; war created orphans all the time, and when he looks through the scope of his blaster, finding the man with Jyn’s green eyes, he thinks for a moment that he is no better than War itself.

He is glad when he is able to prove them both wrong.

He yells at her when they get on the ship. Water dripping into his eyes, he pushes away the thought that this is the second time he has pulled her away from her dead father. His pain and uncertainty manifest in shouted words thrown without a thought. He defied orders. He defied them for her. 

She tells him he is no better than a Stormtrooper and he thinks that perhaps today is the first day in a long time that he actually is.

Jyn’s eyes flash with fire when she storms out of the War Room. Of course they hadn’t believed her. The risk is too great. But Cassian doesn’t care. Nor do Kay and the people he has gathered, his old friends. Nor do Chirrut, Bodhi, and Baze, his new friends. And when he welcomes her home all he can see are the eyes of a little girl who had been searching for a place to belong her whole life, who is thankful to have finally found one. 

He never tells her how he knows her. He doesn’t have time. The flight to Scarif is a blur of preparations and plans, and then they are kneeling together on a beach, holding each other as a blaze of white light races to swallow them whole. 

A promise ligers between them. _I could have been happy with you. I could have loved you. Maybe I did._

They die together with a peace neither thought could ever be found. Not in a war. Not after everything. Not for them.

 

When Leia Organa reads the report of the Battle of Scarif she grieves for a friend she had known most of her life, a boy who had joined the Rebellion to find justice but who had given up the search long ago. And she grieves for a little girl she barely knew but who, she is now sure, she would have been friends with. 

She prays to the Force that they are at peace among the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!! Comments always make my day, so let me know what you thought!
> 
> Come say hi to me on Tumblr at [wearesuchstuff1](http://wearesuchstuff1.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Unfortunately I do not own Star Wars or Rogue One. If I did Cassian and Jyn would still be alive.


End file.
